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Publishing Science

What's the latest science "flavour of the month"? Last month it was possums; this month it's tuataras. Work by scientists at Victoria University has been on the cover of Nature, in New Scientist and now in this issue. Different stories with different angles, but all focused on the same animal.

It's a product of news gathering. A new discovery is announced and we all want to learn more about it. However, racing into print requires balancing the desire to appear first against the need to retain the trust of your scientific sources.

Learned journals get first choice, and first publication rights are jealously guarded by the likes of Nature and Science. When asked why Nature published a rather dubious piece of research, the journal's editor, John Maddox, mentioned his concern at competition from Le Monde. A popular newspaper's interest in a topic was enough to push a prestigious journal into a decision bitterly regretted.

Academic success is often indicated by the amount of published papers and the publication involved. In a world which demands accountability, cited references provide a tangible measure of the value of a scientist. Researchers carefully weigh up the chances of having a paper accepted, the prestige value of the journal and who gets their name printed first.

The need for academic visibility contrasts with the tradition of public self-effacement. Those scientists who do succeed in writing for the masses are viewed with a measure of distrust. David Bellamy and Carl Sagan are both excellent communicators appreciated by all. But they have jeopardised their scientific credentials by acting as an interface between their more standoffish colleagues and the rest of society.

Ironically, many scientists feel that they are poorly served by the mass media. They consider themselves to be either inaccurately represented or (worse) ignored altogether. Often they're right.

There are moves to change this. Awards for informative well-written science reporting are springing up, recognising not just journalists but scientists themselves. In a new move, the New Zealand Microbiological Society has established a fellowship to enable scientists to work for a time in the media.

Those scientists will have to face problems familiar to any reporter -- the time-consuming task of hunting up stories, attempting to convince the editor to run it and deciding what to leave in and what to leave out.

They'll also experience the problems peculiar to the science desk -- how to simplify a story without losing essential details and how to cope with the frustrating reticence of a scientist reluctant to talk before the research has been "officially" published...

Vicki Hyde is the editor of New Zealand Science Monthly.